Communication systems, including radio communication systems, can be quite complex. Such communication systems may include numerous communication channels with many receivers, transmitters, and transceivers all operating simultaneously on the communication network. In certain types of communication network, certain individuals, hereinafter operators, are responsible for monitoring and controlling communications and communicating with field personnel via the communication network to coordinate the efforts and locations of the field personnel.
A classic example of such an operator is a dispatcher of a public safety radio telecommunication network used by public safety officials, such as police, fire fighters, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), hospitals, etc. Other examples include military operations, dispatchers for transportation companies such as trucking companies, taxi companies, and other livery companies, shipping and courier companies such as Federal Express and the United States Postal Service, and utility companies such as telephone, cable television, electricity, and gas companies. These dispatchers are often responsible for coordinating the efforts of a large number of field personnel, such as police officers, fire fighters, taxi drivers, repair and installation crews, etc.
It is common for a single dispatcher to have these responsibilities with respect to a plurality of different talk groups. A talk group, as used herein, is a set of radio devices that can communicate with each other. For instance, police officers may comprise one talk group while fire fighters comprise a different talk group. Generally speaking, the police officers can communicate with the dispatcher and with each other using one set of communication channels and the firefighters can communicate with each other and the dispatcher using another set of channels, but the firefighters and the police officers in different talk groups cannot communicate with each other directly over the communication network.
A single dispatcher may oversee a very large number of different talk groups, possibly numbering in the hundreds. A talk group may be an individual police unit (e.g., SWAT, Narcotics, Canine), an individual police department, an individual EMT group, the members of an individual fire station, or combinations thereof (e.g., the New York City Fire Department and the New York City Police Department combined may be a talk group, while the New York City Police Department and the New York City Fire Department also are two other talk groups).
Commonly, a dispatcher sits at a dispatch station that may be in a control room shared with several other dispatchers. Each dispatcher station typically comprises a plurality of computer monitors and other user interface devices (such as computer mouses, foot switches, speakers, microphones, etc.).
Dispatchers frequently work under emergency conditions in which potentially life and death decisions must be made under severe time constraints.
A typical dispatcher station may have about three to six monitors between which the dispatcher must divide his or her attention. In the exemplary dispatcher station illustrated in FIG. 1, the dispatcher 10 has four monitors 11, 12, 13, 14, three of which (12, 13, 14) are under the control of and use by a computer aided dispatch (CAD) computer system 15 that displays to the dispatcher 10 important information, such as the locations and identities of various field personnel and equipment and the location and identity of various situations or incidents that require the attention of the field personnel. Typically, another monitor 11 is dedicated for use by a dispatch console 16. A dispatch console essentially is a specially programmed computer 16 (it may be a general purpose computer running special dispatch console software) that manages the communication assets at the dispatcher's disposal and displays information about the communication network on a monitor like monitor 11 that is dedicated to the dispatch console. Each dispatch station further typically has a plurality of speakers 17, 18 on which the communications of the various talk groups are heard. Each speaker typically has the communications of a plurality of talk groups on it. The dispatcher normally also has a two-way communication headset 18 on which the dispatcher usually communicates with one particular talk group at any given time (or possibly a patch or simulselect group as will be discussed further below).
By way of a typical example, using a public safety dispatcher as an example, a call taker at a 911 center receives calls from the general population relating to emergencies and other public safety situations and types up an incident report with the critical information about the emergency, such as the nature and the location of the emergency, and sends it electronically to a dispatcher's CAD system. The dispatcher reviews the information and makes a determination based on his or her experience as to what field assets (personnel, equipment, etc.) should be assigned to the incident as a function of the size and nature of the incident, the available assets and their locations, other on-going incidents, and then uses the dispatch console to create, manipulate, and control talk groups and communicate with field personnel to attempt to address the incident.
A typical dispatch console software product, such as the MaestroIP system sold by Harris Corporation, provides hundreds upon hundreds of features. Often, the government entities and companies that purchase these systems set up the communication network and dispatch stations using only a small, custom-selected subset of all of the available features of the dispatch console. The individual dispatchers may also wish to customize their stations to their own liking. However, often, the companies or government entities do not permit further customization by the dispatchers for several reasons. First, having a uniform graphical user interface simplifies training of new dispatchers, since all dispatchers are trained on identical systems. Furthermore, dispatching commonly is a twenty-four hour a day operation such that dispatchers usually work in shifts and, therefore, each dispatch station is actually used by a plurality of different dispatchers every day. When dispatchers change shifts, particularly in the middle of one or more emergencies, there is no time to reconfigure the station and no time to learn the configuration use by the preceding dispatcher. Therefore, having a uniform graphical user interface for all dispatchers will facilitate shift switches without confusion.
Even where all of the dispatchers have the same graphical user interface, each individual dispatcher usually has his or her own individual subset of those features within the uniform graphical user interface that he or she tends to use most often.
Normally, a dispatcher's attention is primarily directed to the CAD system monitors 12, 13, 14, and not to the dispatch console monitor 11, which often is positioned off to the side of the CAD monitors. Nevertheless, the dispatch console has an extremely critical role in enabling the dispatcher to perform his or her duties.